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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Jade Tiger by Jenn Reese

I recently subscribed to a blog called SF Novelists. One of the contributors wrote a blog entry that really made me think. In summary, Ms. Reese would prefer if the way a character fights reveals a deeper insight into that character. Check out the actual blog post here, Pushing Your Punches.

Hey, what an interesting concept!

I decided to learn more about this author, and discovered that after joining up just five or so years ago, she has become a very serious practitioner of martial arts. And, using her new knowledge, she wrote a fiction book called Jade Tiger.

Well, this summary describes me, too (started martial arts about five years ago, and in that time have become more and more into it, and I have a fictional character who puts to use the martial arts I learn in reality).

So I couldn't resist buying Jade Tiger to see what the author did with her character. Here's my short and simple review: This book is a fast-paced, modern day pulp. If you want to be wowed by displays of martial art that supersede our own dull world, Shan Westfall is your heroine.

Stop Reading For No SpoilersWhile I identified with the male lead, an archaeologist, and probably would have been just as much "in worship" of Shan as he instantly was, the unfolding relationship these two enjoyed seemed a little too destined, and a little too rushed. Of course, the whole book was that way--a rush (in the best sense of the word). So I suppose it was of a piece with the narrative.

I actually quite appreciated that the story didn't explore finding each and every piece (5 total) of the missing artifacts Shane sought--after one such sideline to discover a piece called the Dragon, the characters relatively quickly find themselves in the conclave of the mad martial-artist-villain. Here we get to enjoy several sweet fights in fast succession, a consummation of the building romance, and a demonstration of the fully armed and operational Jade Circle, in the villain's hands.

I've never tried aikido, but I've had one friend who was a big fan of it.

In college I took kendo and tried out karate. Oh yeah, and I wrestled with some success before that. But that just set me up for a lot of bad habits in jujutsu! Turns out that getting someone to lie on their back is NOT the end of the fight--on your back, you've got arms, hands and legs still able to be used--who cares if your shoulder blades are touching the mat for 3 seconds? So yeah, the flavors can sometimes be at fairly extreme odds.

Thanks so much for the link, and for reading JADE TIGER! I'm doubly nervous when other martial artists pick it up -- when I wrote it, I had only been studying for about 2 years, and I hadn't started studying kung fu yet.

Of course, I can only dream that someday I'll be accosted at a con by someone saying, "Hey, on page 35 your heroine is clearly in an Aikido stance, but on page 112, she's clearly doing jujitsu..."

And "pulp" is a great description -- I think I'll start using that. :)

That would be pretty cool to be so accosted! Then you can say, "mixed martial arts of course--I know many traditions."

It is hard to get too realistic anyhow, especially if there is a fantastic element to the book. I'm trying a little harder to inject real moves in one scene I'm currently working on, don't know if it'll end up passing the sniff test :-).